Bird Flu Back in Hungary
January 30, 2007
European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou urged all member states "to step up their vigilance" and to reassess their risk levels following the outbreak at a goose farm in Csongrad County, southeastern Hungary, according to his spokesman Philip Tod.
An EU-approved laboratory in Britain had confirmed that it "was indeed a case of the H5N1 strain," Tod told a press conference in Brussels.
Meanwhile, the Hungarian authorities announced a suspected second outbreak in the southeast of the country and said they had responded by slaughtering all 9,400 geese on the farm.
"Animals suspected of carrying bird flu were found Friday on a goose farm in Derekegyhaza," about 170 kilometers (105 miles) southeast of Budapest, the agriculture ministry said.
Samples from that farm were also sent to the laboratory in Weybridge, near London, which the Commission uses to confirm such cases.
Tod stressed that in both instances all EU rules had been carried out, including the slaughter of infected flocks, disinfection of affected farms and the setting up of safety zones within a 10-kilometer perimeter.
While assuring that no further measures were necessary, Tod said fresh outbreaks could not be ruled out.
Neighbors ban Hungarian poultry
But nearby non-EU countries have taken their own measures, with Croatia, Serbia and Russia banning Hungarian poultry exports.
Meanwhile, new EU member Bulgaria responded to the outbreak by banning outdoor poultry markets and putting in place tighter control mechanisms, including border checks, to protect against the spread of bird flu, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.
Four cases of H5N1 were registered in Bulgaria last February in wild swans in the north of the country, but there have been no cases recorded in poultry there.
First European recurrence
It is the first incidence in the European Union of the highly pathogenic avian influenza since August 2006, when one case occurred in a zoo in Dresden, Germany. The virus has killed about 160 people worldwide since late 2003.
The origin of the Hungarian outbreak is still being investigated, but wild birds are considered "a strong possibility" by the European Commission.
Between late 2005 and mid-2006, 13 EU nations -- plus Romania, which has since become a member -- uncovered cases of the H5N1 strain.
Jean-Luc Angot, deputy director-general of the World Organization for Animal Health, said in Paris on Monday that the virus found this month in Hungary was "99.4 percent identical" to the strain that caused outbreaks across Europe last year.
The extremely close similarity suggests the virus holed up among birds in Hungary, enabling it to survive after the end of the outbreak last spring, he said.
The weather factor
Earlier this month the EU decided to lift its ban on live birds entering the bloc but laid down strict conditions for their import.
EU food chain and veterinary experts decided to replace the ban with strict new guidelines that go beyond the rules that were in place before the embargo was imposed in October 2005 amid an earlier bird flu scare.
Experts have suggested that the exceptionally mild winter might prevent the virus spreading. Last year, the biting cold meant animals herded together, which would facilitate contamination, at a time when animals might also well be weakened by lack of nutrition.